Me and my GPS

Never leave home without one!

Well maybe that should be me and my portable GPS device.
Now the GPS has been around in one form or another for about the last twenty five years. Since the mid ‘90s, GPS has gradually supplemented NDB/VOR/INS as the dominant radio navigation system for virtually all air traffic domestic and international world wide. Today the Americans, the Russians, the Europeans and probably the Chinese have a constellation of satellites beaming signals down to their brand of GPS systems.

That availability then spilt across to the GA sector of flying in the mid nineties and today any respectable commercial aircraft has a panel mounted GPS system in it, sometimes multiples. The first models that came out gave a presentation like a CDI in an Omni. They gave a horizontal presentation and so developed the name choky bar models as they looked like a chocolate bar mounted sideways. Gradually these gave way to a small moving map display on the same size screen. That developed into a bigger screen of which the Garmin 430 is probably the best GA example around even if it is no longer in production.